Emergence and Maintenance of Relationships among Agents

The emergence and maintenance of relationships among individual agents studied based on simulations of a model ecosystem. Usually an ecosystem is modeled on an ensemble of individuals, whose interactions are given as direct couplings among individuals. In this paper, a new type of coupling and coupling dynamics are introduced. That is, each individual is seen as NOT directly interacting with other individuals, but rather with the relationships among the individuals (e.g., relationships such as "one agent follows the other"). We study the dynamics of individuals moving on a 2-dimensional plane, where they are making/breaking the relationships constructed between them. In practice, these relationships are assumed to be spatial patterns of more than two individuals. When certain patterns appear, each individual is forced to one of the locations where the pattern has emerged. Some patterns will be lost immediately, but some can be sustained dynamically. For example, we found that a relationship , such as "one individual follows the other", is dynamically sustained by the motions induced by the relationship. Examples of possible relationships and the induced dynamics which hold the relationships together will be discussed.